Have Cheetah,Will View #317 – “Terror 5” (2016)

Anthologies have been on my mind as late,with the reboot of the The Twilight Zone hosted by Jordan Peele and the British series “Black Mirror” in the public’s eye,what better time then our friends at Artsploitation Films to send us an anthology from Argentina?

Now our first film we reviewed from there,”Luciferina” was pretty damn promising and the cheetah and I liked watching it. So to say we were pretty jazzed to see “Terror 5” is putting mildly. I popped this DVD into the player and away we went…..

First the good news about “Terror 5″…..its only 78 minutes long and while it seemed much longer in places..still only 78 minutes long.
The bad? Everything else….this was a horrible mash-up of God knows what.
Story one featured some politicians who were on trial for a accident in which shoddy materials and contruction were used and 15 people were killed. The families of the deceased take a bus to the plaza to protest.

Suddenly and I’m not kidding you,the relatives turn into zombies with blue glowing eyes. No back story,no “what the hell?”,no night of the comets…just suddenly they are zombies and they still retain intelligence as one zombie fires up the bus and with the driver hiding in the back,the bus heads to the courthouse…
Next we see a young man waiting for a girl,they are high school students and the girl seems very worldly. As the two meet up,we see the zombie bus pass by and then we’re back with the couple.
Juan is the boy and Sonia is the girl and as they enter the high school to study,Sonia explains that they do things a little different here as the teachers have a unique way of helping them pass their exams….

In a parking lot by the school,two male friends are hatching a plan to swap girlfriends.
They have a system in place to let the other guy how things are going as they are in parked cars about 200 feet apart. But things screwy when only one of the girlfriends shows up and her boyfriend gets miffed…..
As the miffed boyfriend figures out what went wrong……we see yet another couple enter a hotel room…this is Herman and Gaby. They enter a hotel as a couple but leave it as the unwitting stars of Mr. X and his crew of maverick film makers who have made several other couples into “stars” as well.

The last story has a group of 3 girls and two boys,including one looking like Gene Simmons in full make-up. Supposedly Gene is going to help his friend Cherry lose his err,cherry, but all the group does is make up of Cherry who is a shy overweight teen. As the night gets longer,Cherry is getting more and more pushed to edge.
But when Gene suggest they watch a forbidden snuff film,things go sideways in a hurry when the group fails to heed the danger in their own midst.

Lord,where to even start on this mess? The stories make zero sense and while co-directing brothers Sebastian and Federico Rotstein try to salvage their mess,its a no go.
There is no one who is in the least bit likable,we get nary any backstory on ANY story which is a killer considering all the same stories are connected in one way or another.
The cast tries but they look as confused as we are in trying to make sense of what they are trying to do. The one standout is actress Lu Grosso who plays Sonia,the girl friend of Juan. Otherwise,they all looked the same….dazed and confused.

“Terror 5” is unrated but should be considered a hard “R” for graphic violence and nudity. There are no special features other then a trailer for the film.
To say how disappointed I was with “Terror 5″…..but I’m sure the folks at Artsploitation Films will bounce back with more strong films,even my beloved IFC Films have dropped a bomb or two on my lap!

The cheetah and I both give “Terror 5” four paws/two thumbs down. I wonder where Paladin is taking our copy.…..

If you have seen “Terror 5” feel free to drop a comment and tell us what you thought of it.